"Dave Duncan - Strings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

code itself had triggered alarms, then the call would certainly be either
blocked or monitored. The illicit code and the record coin in his other
pocket-either would make him a dead man. Nowhere in the world could a body be
disposed of as easily as in Cainsville. Nowhere in the world.
One tune ended and another began. Why so long? He might very well have fallen
into a trap. If this was all a fake, a loyalty test that he had now most
certainly failed, then the goons were lining up outside the door already. The
tingling had faded into an unpleasant full-bladder sensation. He always tended
to sweat too much, and at the moment was dribbling like a marathon runner.
Dead man-or rich man' He had never known a call to take this long. He must be
getting through to someone very high up ... high up in something.
Then he blinked at sudden brightness, seeing through the comset into a sunlit
office. The desk was shiny and empty. If that were real wood, it had cost more
money than he would earn in two years. The woman across from him was being
masked. She wore an outfit of hard metallic blue, but that was all he could
tell. Her face was an anonymous blur, although the rest of the room
was as sharp as though he were sitting in it. Whoever her employers were, they
could afford a first-class System. "Report!" Probably her voice was disguised
also.
He squirmed like a hooked worm. One-sided! He should have put a bag over his
head or something. "You don't need to know my name.. . ."
The woman drummed a hard fog of fingers on the wood. "I already know your
name. I even know you have less than forty hectos left in the bank.
Thirty-eight to he exact."
Wilkins's heart lurched. He had not expected the bargaining to start so soon.
"Now report," she repeated. "It had better be good."
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the coin. "I have evidence."
Dave Duncan
was no escape overland from Cainsville. There would be no pursuit, and no
rescue. A fugitive could safely be left alone to wander among those tangled
crags until he froze, or starved. Certainly he would not live long enou.-h to
die of the carcinogenic sunlight.
There was no airport, either, only the lev station, which Security watched
always, as a matter of course. If anything went wrong, he would be hopelessly
trapped.
There were other ways out of Cainsville, but they led to places far, far worse
than even that accursed rocky desert outside.
He had been pacing for a long time, much too long for a man who took no
exercise. Wilkins J. S.-short and swarthy, bom in
2027 and already going bald. Dr. Wilkins, employed by the Institute as a
camera-repair technician. Wilkins Jules Smuts, potential traitor.
Without warning his legs began to tremble. He slumped into his chair and
scowled at the seeming window. Well-why not? In truth, he had known for some
time what his decision was going to be. "Com mode!"
The cornset became a sheet of blank plastic and said, "Proceed. Damp-fingered,
Wilkins pulled from his pocket a tiny scrap of paper, a secret he had been
hoarding for almost two years. It had been slipped into his hand at a party,
with a nod and a wink and a chunk of credit to establish goodwill, plus
promises of much greater joy if he ever used it in a good cause. He cleared
his throat and began to read. "Code Caesar Columbus Dimanche Einfeuchten..."